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United Islamic Republic
The Union of Islamic Republics, also known as the UIR, is a large polity entity covering most of the Middle East, based around the original merger of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Islamic Republic of Iraq. The country borders Russia to the north, China to the east, India to the south and Turkey, Syria and Jordan to the west. The UIR is a member of the Eurasian Economic Union and the Shanghai Pact, with other prominent nations, Russia and China, whom the UIR maintains a close alliance with. The Persian Empire serves as the historical model of governance for the UIR while Shia Islam is the unifying ideology. History Foundation: 2016-2017 Mass civil unrest began across the Islamic world as a result of the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca being damaged in an attack by Saudi loyalist forces during the Saudi Civil War. Iranian President Rouhani and Iraqi President Abadi met in Baghdad to discuss the situation in Saudi Arabia. Over the following months, Iran and Iraq would jointly condemn the Saudi loyalist forces. During the protests, a religious figure, the Mahdi, becomes a prominent figure, with many claiming he is the true Caliph and successor the Prophet Muhammed. On March 16, 2017, the Mahdi made a speech in Qom, Iran, calling for Iran and Iraq to unite into a new Caliphate. However, Iraq's Anbar province saw much violence as the Sunni people in that region protested against the proposed union. On May 3, Iranian and Iraqi parliaments agreed to hold a referendum on the proposed unification, a move that was highly criticised in the West. U.S President Hillary Clinton called the proposed union an "example of Iran's aggression and evidence of her plans to destabilize the region". On May 7, almost 250,000 US troops in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf began mobilisation in case action needed to be made against Iran and Iraq. The 'Persian Gulf Crisis' is said to have begun after the Mahdi called for the Iranians and Iraqis to prepare to expel the US from Saudi territory and return Mecca to Muslim hands. Following this, the US called on the Cairo Pact to help "contain Iranian expansion". Israel also began mobilisation of Iron Dome and Iron Beam systems should a regional war begin. Russia soon became involved, announcing 70,000 troops would be deployed to Iran, and that "an invasion of Iran or Iraq in order to prevent a vote on unification will mean war with Russia". The British and American navies began moving into the Gulf in late May, while Russia began moving missiles into Iran. On June 10, the vote on Iranian-Iraqi unification yielded an overwhelming result in favour of unification, despite the attempts by the United States to undermine the unification. They are officially called the United Islamic Republic of Iran and Iraq until 2018 when Pakistan is admitted to the Union, when the country is renamed the Union of Islamic Republics. Expansion into Afghanistan and Pakistan: 2016-2018 The Taliban began making a resurgence in Afghanistan after NATO concluded all ISAF missions in Afghanistan in 2014. In March 2016, the Taliban seized control of the city of Kandahar in the south of Afghanistan. A few days after this occurrence, the Taliban announced they would swear allegiance to the Islamic State in the Middle East. Iran and Russia started becoming involved in Afghanistan as IS spread control in Afghanistan. On September 5, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard crossed the border into Afghanistan to support the government forces, with Russian aerial drone support. In December Qassem Soleimani was named as the head of Eurasian operations inside Afghanistan, and worked towards securing the loyalty of Pashtun warlords, splitting them away from the Taliban. In July 2017, Soleimani departed from Afghanistan having won the Presidential elections of the newly founded UIR. Before the end of July, Afghan President, Ashraf Ghani requested for Afghanistan to ascend to the new Iranian-Iraqi union to bring stability to his country. On August 21, Afghanistan officially united with the UIR. Iran became involved in Pakistani security in October 2016, offering to assist the Pakistanis in rooting out the Taliban and suppress Baluchi separatism. In May 2017, riots broke out in Quetta, Peshawar, Lahore, Karachi and other Pakistani cities over drone strikes carried out by the Americans inside the country and demanding a ban on US strikes in Pakistan. On September 9, the United States launched Operation Icarus, a large scale operation to secure control of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal to keep it from falling into the hands of the Taliban. Kofi Annan accused the US of violating international law by invading Pakistan. In April, India broke the Treaty of Srinagar and invaded Pakistani Kashmir in a short campaign. Facing total collapse, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif fled to the United Kingdom, establishing a military junta in July 2018. On July 28, the junta requested to join the UIR, officially ascending to the union on August 12. Wars in Central Asia: 2017 See full article: Central Asian Wars On September 2 2017, the President of Tajikistan, Emomali Rahmon, was assassinated by Russian and Iranian intelligence assets in order to take control of the country. The Tajik military quickly moved to install a new government that requested annexation to the UIR. The Iranian military moved into Tajikistan, annexing the country officially on September 7. On September 10 2017, Iranian forces supported by Turkmen, Iraqi and Tajik militias invaded Uzbekistan, the last surviving country in Central Asia. The Iranian troops acted in the same was Chinese and Russian forces in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, isolating units and forcing them to defect or surrender. Units that refused to surrender were brutally wiped out by militia, according to UN reports. Uzbekistan was annexed to the UIR on September 31. Third Lebanon War and the Safavi Affair: 2018 See full article: Third Lebanon War and The Safavi Affair The UIR continued Iran’s support of Shiite militia group Hezbollah, operating inside Lebanon. On June 17 2017, Hezbollah attacked Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, who died of his wounds several days later. Several days later, Hezbollah attempted to assassinate the Syrian President al-Bashir. This lead to Syria and Israel joining forces to invade Lebanon to disarm Hezbollah. The UIR continued to supply Hezbollah throughout the war, and brief skirmishes began between Syrian and Iranian troops on the border with Iraq and a Syrian F-18 is shot down by a UIR rocket, but later apologize for the incident. During the Siege of Beirut, Israel captured a top ranking Iranian military official, Major General Safavi. The UIR demanded that Israel release Safavi, but Israeli Prime Minister Haim Ramon orders for Safavi to be handed over to the Syrian government, who convict Safavi of war crimes and sentence him to death. The UIR demands that Syria return Safavi or face a war. President Soleimani tells Russian President Vladimir Putin that he does not wish for Safavi to be rescued, in order to start the war. Russia launched Operation Blue Silk, a covert operation inside of Syria to liberate Safavi. The operation failed as Syrian intelligence was able to preempt the operation. Putin and Clinton conspired to ensure peace in the region, and cooperated in an operation to ensure that Syria and the UIR were kept unaware about the location of Safavi. The incident ended with the UN establishing an investigation into the incident, led by the US and Russia. Confrontation with Saudi Arabia and Regional Arms Race: 2018-2025 After the conclusion of the Saudi Civil War and the formation of the United Islamic Repubkic in 2017, the UIR and the Saudi led Alliance of Arabian States became regional rivals in the Middle East. Although severely weakened by it civil war, the presence of thousands of American troops under U.S. President Hillary Clinton allowed the Persian Gulf monarchies to continue pumping cheap gas into the global market to meet surging demand, especially in the developing world. The UIR maintained de facto control over most of Yemen throughout this period through the Shia Houthi rebels, although American troops occupied the strategic coastal port of Aden. Skirmishes between the Houthis, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the Saudis and the Americans occurred sporadically. By 2020, the UIR had several hundred nuclear weapons and ICBMs to deliver them, marking its emergence as a nuclear power. The United States prevented Saudi Arabia from developing nuclear weapons. However, regional powers Turkey and Egypt also developed nuclear weapons to protect themselves from the UIR. Israel maintained an arsenal of 200-400 nuclear weapons in secret while expanding its Iron Dome and Iron Beam systems to intercept incoming short and medium range ballistic missiles. The Third Gulf War: 2025 The election of U.S. President Joseph P. Kennedy in November 2024 sealed the fate of the Saudi led Alliance of Arabian States. Kennedy promised to withdraw the U.S. military from much of the world including the Middle East to focus on domestic issues such as social reform, infrastructure, green energy and higher living standards. He did just that by withdrawing American support for Algeria in the Second Algerian Civil War in early 2025 and pulling U.S. troops out of the Alliance of Arabian States in June 2025. The UIR almost immediately launched a campaign to subvert and conquer the oil rich and vulnerable AAS. The UIR backed Shia Houthi rebels went on the offensive capturing the strategic port of Aden after U.S. troops withdrew and seizing the cities of Najran and Jizan in the southwest of neighboring Saudi Arabia country near the Houthi strongholds in Yemen. UIR military intelligence kicked off a Shia revolt in Saudi Arabia's oil rich and predominantly Shia Eastern Province in early August 2025 which soon spread to the long oppressed Shia populations of neighboring Bahrain and Kuwait. Fearing devastation in the coming war between the UIR and the AAS, the Sultanate of Oman and the Emir of Dubai seceded from the Alliance of Arabian States and recognized the spiritual authority of the Mahdi signifying de facto conversion to Shia Islam. In late August 2025, Shia militia and UIR regular troops backed by armor and drones crossed the border into Kuwait defeating the Saudi Army in the Battle of Kuwait, a tank battle outside Kuwait City. The UIR militias and regular troops helped rioting Shia mobs seize control of cities throughout the western side of the Persian Gulf from ruling the Gulf monarchies in an rampage of rape, looting and murder against the former ruling Sunnis. Only Oman and Dubai escaped destruction by agreeing to become self governing regions within the UIR. These two entities with the UIR would become an "Iranian Hong Kong," a place where rules in the rest of the UIR didn't apply, allowing them to attract multinational companies and become the business, finance, technology and innovation hubs of the UIR. Kuwait and Bahrain became Shia controlled UIR provinces while Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province, Qatar and the rest of the United Arab Emirates became the Province of Hasa, the fiefdom of the Shia Gulf Arabs controlling a significant percentage of the world's hydrocarbons. This province would make the UIR the world's energy superpower after the war. The war ended with the UIR capturing Mecca and Medina in November 2025 and the remnants of the Royal Family] fleeing to Cairo. The two Islamic holy cities were the only places in the entire Arabian peninsula aside from Dubai and Oman to escape wide scale looting and destruction during the war. The UIR as a Rising Superpower: 2025-2050 Control over the energy reserves of the Persian Gulf made the UIR the undisputed energy superpower of the world. The UIR embarked on spending splurge modernizing its military to rival China, Russia and the United States and expanding its space program. The UIR became increasingly Shia and Persian during this period encouraging its diverse populations to identify as Shia and encouraging Farsi as the language of business, education, government, culture, aviation and inter-ethnic communication outside the western Arabic speaking regions. This was especially true in former Pakistan where the Farsi began supplanting Urdu and English as the lingua Franca for the still largely illiterate masses. The UIR prepared for the eventual end of the fossil fuel age building vast arrays of solar farms throughout the Arabian Peninsula after technological breakthroughs in the 2020s that greatly reduced the cost of solar power. Vast solar farms built and financed largely by Chinese, Korean and Japanese multinationals based in Dubai made the UIR a major player in the solar industry by the mid 2030s. The UIR provided a significant percentage of Europe's energy via HVDC cables running through Turkey and under the Mediterranean Sea. The UIR also supplied a significant percentage of India's energy needs through HVDC cables stretching under the Arabian Sea from solar farms in the Oman and Baluchistan regions of the UIR. Despite its copious energy production, the UIR remained mired in extreme poverty and plagued by overpopulation in most regions of the vast territory it controlled. The middle class did not expand as rapidly in the UIR as it did in China or India with the UIR government using Islam to placate the population. Tehran, Dubai, Muscat and a few other cities developed advanced, high tech economies but they were the exception. Democracy was also a sham in UIR with Qassem Soleimani bring elected to five five years terms in arrow between 2017 and 2042 with the approval of the Mahdi. Only the Kurdistan Regional Government had a real democracy within the UIR. Politics Foreign Relations The UIR maintains close economic and political ties with Eurasian partners Russia and China. It also has strong trade relations with Turkey, India and the nations of Europe. However, many nations rightly fear the theocratic and expansionist UIR which dominates the Middle East like a collosus. Economy The UIR has an economy largely based on selling oil and natural gas. After the capture of the entire Persian Gulf region in 2025, the UIR became the world's top energy producer. The UIR also has a growing manufacturing base, while Dubai and Oman have highly developed economies. The UIR also has an extensive nuclear energy program combining the former civilian and military nuclear programs of Iran and Pakistan. By the mid-2030s, the UIR was a major player in the solar industry due to technological breakthroughs outside the UIR, mainly in East Asia, that drastically reduced the costs of solar power in the 2020s. Demographics: Due to its young population and relatively low standard of living for the majority of the population, the UIR has one of the highest population growth rates in the world second only to sub-Saharan Africa. Despite its immense oil and gas wealth, the UIR has not achieved higher living standards for the majority of its population in stark contrast to other rising superpowers China and India. Dubai, Muscat, Tehran and a few other wealthy cities are the exceptions to widespread poverty. Major Cities with 2030 Populations *Karachi: 38 million *Tehran: 21 million *Lahore: 16 million *Baghdad: 14 million *Kabul: 7.8 million *Faisalabad: 7.4 million *Sanaa: 7.2 million *Tashkent: 6.9 million *Dammam: 6.7 million *Basra: 6.5 million *Islamabad: 6.2 million *Riyadh: 5.2 million *Dubai: 4.2 million *Mashhad: 4.1 million *Tabriz: 3.9 million *Isfahan: 3.5 million *Aden: 3.4 million *Mosul: 3.2 million *Kandahar: 3 million *Bukhara: 2.9 million *Quetta: 2.7 million *Peshawar: 2.6 million *Herat: 2.5 million *Baku: 2.3 million *Abu Dhabi: 2.2 million *Mecca: 2.1 million *Irbil: 1.9 million *Dushanbe: 1.8 million *Medina: 1.6 million *Kirkuk: 1.5 million *Muscat: 1.4 million *Hamadan: 1.2 million *Zahedan: 1.1 million Category:Middle East Category:Nations